Chapter 35
BangBangBang . Knocking on the door of the luxurious mansion as the sunset gave out its last ray outside, Tim struggled to loosen his stiff face . Beckman behind his back was still tilting his head with a dubious look, and his flustered partner who was looking at the door slightly touching him in place . After a short time, the door opened . A voice from a round and pretty-eyed child is heard .
"Eh, detective?"
"Ah, yeah, it's us . ”
Barely smiling, Tim waved at the girl . The child's face seemed to pause in a strange shape than when he saw it at school, perhaps because of his mood, as if she was hiding a piece of a broken vase behind her back .
"May I come in?”
" . . . . . . no, I'm alone right now . ”
"There are shoes on the porch . Is there an adult? I'm going in, Clara . ”
Clara swung open the door with a rude touch, and Jude strode into the front door . The girl with the pigtails shut her mouth with a slightly angry face . Feeling the discomfiture of the situation with his whole body, Tim also followed Jude through the door . Beckman, still unconvinced, uttered something like a sigh with an uncomfortable face, finally came into the house with the front door closed .
"This . Looking at the shoe shape, it looks like your father is here . Where is he?”
“I don't know, Dad is sleeping . Come later, stop!”
The angry voice rang in the house . Not to be bothered by the voice, Jude looked around, shrugged and looked back at Tim . At the end of Jude's gaze, there was a woman's handbag on the table .
"Mr . Lance was right . He must be having a secret affair with a woman . "
"Mr . Lance . . . . . . ?"
A glimpse of surprise flashed across Clara's face . Watching the rapid and small change of expression, Tim put his hand on his stomach to endure the nausea . It was hard to stand the unbelievable words he heard from Lance being revealed one by one . Looking alternately at Beckman and Tim, Jude turned to the girl who bit her lips .
"Come on, Clara . Your father is still working out . You don't want to let your father know we're here . So if you show me to the living room quietly, I think I can talk to you there . ”
" . . . . . . well, just do it at the table . ”
Sitting in a chair close by, Clara looked at Jude with a slightly angry face . As if not feeling much excitement, Beckman and Tim naturally settled next to Jude, who sat in front of the child . Tim, who felt the edginess of the girl's suffocating gaze, silently opened his mouth first as if trying to shake the feeling off .
"Well, Clara, I'm here to ask you something . . . "
"What did Mr . Lance say?”
The little girl cut off Tim’s words mid-sentence, asked, twisting her pigtails with her right hand . From this child, why does it smells like a street prostitute looking at life cynically? A street prostitute? Frightened by his own thoughts, Tim looked at Jude instead of Clara . Jude, nodding his head, recites the words as if he had no awareness of dealing with a child or just that there was no disparity in his attitude to whoever he was dealing with .
"Well, it's simple . Even though your family may seem prosperous on the outside, it's actually incredibly rotten, and that's why you realize the unpleasant truth that despite your young age, the world is a trash can and the people are trash . So you were close to Mr . Lance about it . ”
"……he said he'd keep it a secret, but the teacher said it surprisingly easily . ”
"Because you put him in the police station, don't blame anyone . I don't want to take long, so let's be simple and concise . You're the one behind the meet up, right?”
"What do you mean, a meeting, all of a sudden?”
"Don't play dumb, I'm on my way back from hearing from Josh . We've got someone to check on Connie right now . It was you who controlled the children at the center of the meeting, right?”
"Stop talking nonsense! Why would I kill my friends? Why? Reeve, after Reeve died, how much, how much I was . . . . . . . . . . !”
"Why, it’s to let Reeve be free . I heard you told Josh that's what you said . It's a way out for Reeve . But you haven't told them it's pretty big now, have you? If Connie talks about you, you can't help but get involved . It's a matter of time, so just tell me now . You know you're underage and you're not going to jail anyway . ”
Clara shut her mouth for a moment . The child, who was looking back at Tim, Jude and Beckman as if to gauge her opponent, sighed and lowered her gaze . Beckman still shook his head at Jude with a suspicious look -because he had a little daughter- but Jude looked at Clara with a shrug of his shoulders and no words . After sitting firm like a doll without moving, facing the floor for a while, Clara opened her mouth to Jude .
"It was . . . . . our hideout . ”
Beckman's eyes grew a little wider . Jude nodded with the face of a man who had fixed the leaky plumbing .
"You mean the meeting?”
"About my house, Mr . Lance told you everything, right?”
"Yes . Well, to the extent he knows . ”
The father with a decent high-income job had an affair with a woman about 20 years of age, and her mother was also in the midst of a secret affair with her health club instructor, and rarely stayed at home . During the limited amount of time with her parents, she only heard harsh words and scolding that they should not be allowed to pour on to the child . The housekeeper was aware of it all, but did nothing for fear that her jobs would be jeopardized . However, there was no problem whatsoever with the student records . Both parents live through just like that, a wealthy family . Inside, however, the stagnant purulence was growing bigger and bigger .
"I'm sick and tired of it . But if you look closely at school, there were more children like me than I thought . So, at first, it was just a late gathering . They didn't have guardians to stop them from getting home late, so it wasn't that hard . ”
"By the way, what's the reason for the suddenness?”
"This was something Mr . Lance told me, but Reeve, Eli, and Carrie were having a particularly hard time . Their mom, dad, and grandfather weighed them down so much that they couldn't come to the meeting . They’ve always said they can't get out of there . No matter how hard we struggle, we're kids, we don't have adults who believe what we say, and no one willing to do anything for us . ”
" . . . . . . so . . . . . . you?”
Beckman turned to Clara in a dismayed look . It's been a while since Clara began to talk, but it still seems difficult to acknowledge this situation . Smiling once as if laughing at Beckman, Clara continued with a cute voice .
"We had to get something moving . Since I was the first one to make a meeting, and the kids followed me the most, so I told them . It's not that there's no way out . ”
"You mean the kids followed suit? They're willing to die, so easily?"
"Of course I said no at first . I'm scared . But that was the only way . It's hard to say that it's better to live in the midst of adults for the rest of our life, to endure it for a while, or to be comfortable forever . ”
"How do you know death makes them feel better?”
"Keke, detective . No matter how hard it is, it can't be harder than when they lived . ”
Laughing out loud once, Clara quickly returned to her expressionless face and tilted her head slightly .
"We just helped out a little . Aren't there friends who tell you that it's easier to do it faster when bungee jumping? Like I did . It wasn't much . It was a bit hard in the pool, but he kept trying to come up because he was out of breath . ”
"So what did you do?”
"Nothing, I just stayed by the side . I told him not to come out . ”
Tim raised his hand to the mouth, feeling uncomfortable . With the children gathering by the side all night to watch, there would have been no guarantee that the deceased would live on even if they want to . But they were only about 11 years old . No, it might have been possible because they were children . Holding back as he wanted to shake his head, Tim asked quietly .
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